Steve Chapman: Best books can last through whole life

I recently started Victor Hugo’s novel Les Miserables, which most people seem to prefer in movie or
musical theater form if only because those take less time. You can get the
story in under three hours instead of taking who knows how long to plow through
the 1,232-page Penguin edition.

No, I’m not fishing for sympathy. Having this mountain of
pages to climb gives me great peace of mind. I like starting books, and I like
reading books. What I don’t like is finishing books, and with Les Miserables, that won’t be a problem
for a while.

Finishing a book means the end of something pleasurable —
otherwise I would have tossed it aside long before. It also fills me with dread
and terror, because it means I have to decide what to read next.

For years I avoided Les
Miserables, partly because it seemed like the reading equivalent of Jean
Valjean’s 19 years as a galley slave. But then my daughter gave it to me for
Christmas, and I have a firm policy of reading any book my kids give me.

Besides, what’s so great about skinny books? As a friend of
mine says when people ask him why he reads mammoth volumes, “If you really like
a book, why would you want it to be shorter?”

No one, after all, seeks out ski mountains because they have
short runs. No one wishes Beethoven had done three-minute symphonies. No one
exercises in hopes of achieving an abbreviated lifespan.

One- or two-pound books spare me, for a while, the most
painful part of my reading regimen: indecision. When I reach the end, I’m
tormented by all the options before me: Fiction or history? Biography or
memoir? Contemporary or 19th century? American or British? I can’t sleep
soundly till I decide how to spend the coming weeks or months.

Yes, months, because after a youth spent gobbling down books
like a starving goat, I have come to understand the wisdom of taking ... them
... slowly. It’s not much of an accomplishment to have read every important
author if most of what they wrote escapes you afterward.

So I try to pay attention to every word and sentence,
underlining the ones that grab me. And I don’t read books once. I read them
twice: stopping every 50 or 100 pages to go back and read them again.

Given my inadequate capacity for retention, it’s the only
way I can remember what I’ve read for more than 72 hours. And if I really want
to remember it — well, there’s no law against reading the same volume three
times.

The first time through, I’m reading the book. The second
time, I’m living in it. The third time, it’s taking up permanent residence in
me.

This approach has other attractions. My greatest fear in
life is being stuck somewhere with nothing to read. I once boarded an
eight-hour nighttime flight only to find that my overhead reading lamp was
broken and every other seat was taken. Oh, and the in-flight movie was Inspector Gadget.

Now I take not only a book but my own reading light — with
spare batteries. If you don’t mind re-reading, one book is all you need.

Even my hour-long daily commuter train ride is agony without
a supply of printed words. Once in a while, an accident on the tracks ahead
will delay us for an hour or two. Major inconvenience? No, exceptional reading
opportunity.

Writer Joe Queenan recently published a memoir, One for the Books, in which he claims to
have read 6,128 of them in his 62 years, or more than 100 a year, with plans to
finish another 2,137 before his life story reaches The End.

I haven’t kept up with him so far, and I have no ambition to
try.

In fact, my goal is to read only a dozen or so books each
year, and read them slowly and carefully. A book read that way doesn’t sit on
your shelf. It percolates in your soul.

I’m of the view that anything worth doing is worth
prolonging and worth revisiting over and over. The best books are like the best
romances: They last as long as you live.

Mind if I stop now? I have some reading to do.

STEVE CHAPMAN’S column
is distributed by Creators Syndicate Inc.

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